My Post #42: The Who - Another Tricky Day

The Whooooooooooooo.

Oh man. Summer 2010 was the moment when I began to actually start listening to the band. Best decision I've made.

I could start a whole story about how I started listening to them and everything, but 'Another Tricky Day; doesn't really fit in with that, so I'll leave that for another day.

Firstly, my new found love for The Who made me want to search for music videos on the YouTubes, and after coming across songs like 'Happy Jack' and 'Substitute' I realised that they were experts at everything they did. Townshend is a great guitar player, Moon, well, you know he's crazy but a beast on the drums, Entwistle the best bass player of all time and Daltrey with his soaring vocals combined produced a wall of melodic noise to great effect.

Then I watched the video for this song; initially I didn't think much of it. Keith wasn't there, he had passed away, and it all sounded very tame. All the energy was lost, but Entwistle made it up with his bass. Townshend was still recuperating after Keith's death, he was drinking and thinking he was going to go next, his family had left him. Life got hard.

It's a pretty sad song. I feel sad listening to it sometimes. I was going to school recently with my iPod playing in my ears. It was raining, this song started playing, and I began to feel useless. The weather was bad, I didn't want to go in, everything was just so boring and repetitive. I don't feel like working anymore, I will for my exams but school is just so pointless.

"It's just another tricky day for you."

Yeah, I know Roger thank you.

All in all, I never feel really happy when I hear this song. Thoughts of dread and despair build up, and it isn't great.

We shall have a happier post tomorrow.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #41: The Beatles - Another Girl

Alright. So, if you read my post yesterday, you know that I am 18 years old! Woot woot.

I still feel the same though. Does everyone else wake up when it's their birthday and just think, 'well, what now?' I thought that by turning eighteen I would feel some sense of freedom or intellectual gain, that hasn't happened so far. Meh. Life goes on.

Yeah yeah, The Beatles were great blah blah blah.

'Another Girl' is a bright and peppy song of the band's album 'Help!'. Paul McCartney takes the lead on this, also filling the role as the lead guitarist. He's the one doing all the random licks during the verses and chorus.

The band also play along with the song in a kind of music video, this can be seen in their movie also named 'Help!'. It's all fun and games with the Fab Four. The guys are in the Bahamas fooling around, John starts playing the drums and Ringo tries to the play the guitar, George starts throwing rocks at the other members, Paul almost touches a girl's noob whilst 'strumming' her like a bass. It's all good times in 1965.

'Help!' won't be that album that The Beatles are most known for, but it's still got some good tunes. This is a highlight.

Happy birthday to me and Pharrell Williams.

RIP Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #40: The Rutles - Another Day

Hi everyone.

It's my birthday tomorrow. Yaaaaaaaaaaay. I am getting older. I will no longer be seventeen in a few hours.

How will I celebrate this day? Probably revising. I will do something with friends though, that's a guarantee. I'm not socially awkward or anything.

Where does the time go? I remember turning seventeen like it was two days ago. Oh well, here's to another healthy year on this earth, and may good tidings come my way in the future.

Back to the music.

Lately when I watched a Rutles video on YouTube, some idiot posted 'Oh my god, these guys are trying to hard to be The Beatles. They make the same kind of music and everything', or something along those lines.

Well no shit, Sherlock.

The Rutles are a parody of the band, created by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame, and Neil Innes of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The band was originally part of a sketch in the show 'Rutland Weekend Television', however the 'Pre-Fab Four' gained fame in the television film, 'All You Need Is Cash'. A must-watch, it's very funny. John Lennon and George Harrison liked it, so.... you know. Witness it.

'Another Day' isn't featured in the film, but can be found on the soundtrack album. It's an obvious parody on 'Martha My Dear' from The White Album, with 'Dirk McQuickly' on lead vocals. Really it's sung by Ollie Halsall, a left-handed guitar player who provided lead vocals on all the 'Paul' songs of the album. If you want to find out more about him there won't be anything recent, he passed away in 1992.

I've pretty much summed it up right there. Neil Innes wrote all the songs for The Rutles, and his songs sounded so much like The Beatles that, apparently, he was taken to court by owners of The Beatles' catalogue. The song 'Cheese and Onions' even appeared on a John Lennon bootleg because it sounded so much like him.

Innes' lyrics are very clever too. I didn't even know the word 'pusillanimous' existed until I heard this song.

Until next time.

Jamie.